Small Scale Hay Making

[Mark Page]

If I got into making hay on a small scale, maybe 8 or so acres, how much power would I need? Cutting, raking and baling. I don't expect this to be a profitable venture, just something to play with.

 

[Fossil Farm]

We used a Massey 35 to do everything. Have 40 tillable acres. Sold it to a friend who restored it, and it could work well for another 50 years I think. One of the farms I worked on as a teenager, we used a Farmall M for everything except running the baler. Course we didn't have haybines and fancy rakes back then either !! Converted some horse drawn equipment to use on the tractor and it was not fast, but worked just fine.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Funny you'd bring this up today. I just posted a thread over in the attachments forum about mini balers. It seems you CAN do it with about any size tractor clear down to the two wheeled BCS type tractors.

To really do it right though, you should probably have a 30 hp tractor or larger. 8 acres would be a nice size piece for haying.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I have a 3000 Yanmar thats 30 hp. I run a 501 Ford Mower, an old Deere Rake and a Takakita mini baler. It bales small round rolls. I rolled about 500 bales this summer on some small plots. Its slower than a square baler but I m not in a hurry.

 

[zzvyb6]

I easily ran my JD 14T baler with a 22 hp Yanmar. I used the same tractor to run my NH 479 mower conditioner. Needed some front weight help with that one, though. You can pull a NH rollabar hayrake with a 4 wheeler...

Its a lot of fun, exercise and a good excuse to buy a welder, compressor, tools, trailers, snowmobiles, 4 wheelers and some dogs to protect the equipment from stray cats. Oh, and a bass boat for customer appreciation day.

Handy to have some neighbors with horses and who also have teenagers for slave labor.:laughing:

The IRS will only audit you once. Lost money ever since.

 

[Catfish Man]

We run a gehl round baler that was rated for 50 ish pto hp with a MF 235 for several years until we could upgrade to a larger tractor.

It wasn't an ideal setup but it got the job done.

This was in the deep south with virtually no hills, there is no way I would attempt it where I live now.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

If you go with all smaller equipment and older your 231S will do just fine. On 8 acres you will not need the bigger, higher capacity equipment so just start looking for good, older equipment with good local dealer support. New Holland and John Deere have some of the best hay equipment parts and support networks. You won't go wrong with either of those brands.

 

[LastSTRAW]

I use a Ford 2110 with a New Holland 311 Baler. No issues whatsoever even on the hills.

If you have a smaller tractor you might be able to find the older type balers with the two cylinder gas motor that uses a belt to run the large flywheel. That way your only tractor task is to pull the baler not operate it.

 

[bucktaker]

MF 35 deluxe tractor, Ford 501 sickle, IH hay conditioner, New idea rake John Deere 24T baler 2 16 foot wagons been there done that lost all my help, had a heart attack so now I buy and resell hay to my horse friends.

 

[plowindeeper]

I have a 3000 Yanmar thats 30 hp. I run a 501 Ford Mower, an old Deere Rake and a Takakita mini baler. It bales small round rolls. I rolled about 500 bales this summer on some small plots. Its slower than a square baler but I m not in a hurry.

I want to come watch one day when your baling with the mini baler been thinking about buying one myself

 

[flusher]

If I got into making hay on a small scale, maybe 8 or so acres, how much power would I need? Cutting, raking and baling. I don't expect this to be a profitable venture, just something to play with.

I have a 6 acre hayfield and use a Massey Ferguson 124 baler (square bales, 2-twine, 30-60 lb adjustable via bale length setting). Recommended pto power is 35 hp. But balers this size have been run via much smaller tractors with success. Here's a video showing a baler like my 124 being run by a 1950s vintage Farmall Super A tractor with about 16 hp (pto). The baler segment is about 6 minutes into the video.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvz8-Sw1ntA]FARMALL Super A - YouTube[/ame]

Balers like these sometimes were outfitted with on-board gas engines like the 4-cylinder air-cooled Wisconsin TFD engine (around 20 hp engine). The baler flywheel is belt-driven by the TFD. This setup is also used by Amish hay farmers with two horsepower provided by a team of 4-legged hay-burners .

Cutting with a 7-ft sicklebar would require maybe 20 hp (pto) depending on the crop and how heavy it is. And raking with a 5-bar side delivery rake or a wheel rake (both ground driven) could be done with 15-20 hp (engine).

My sicklebar is a 7-ft MF31 and my rake is a pto-driven JD 350 5-bar side delivery unit.

Since you don't mention tillage or planting implements, I assume you're just baling native grasses.

Good luck.

 

[Mark Page]

When we bought the property this field was an overgrown mess. I hit it 2x with Round UP then turned it over. In the spring I Roto Tilled it, waited a week or so to see if anything from the seed bank was going to show itself. I put down lime and fertilizer and a mix of Orchard Grass, Timothy and a bit of White Clover for the deer. Turned out to be a beautiful stand of grass.

 

[rambler]

To enjoy baling I'd want a 35 hp or bigger tractor in the ag or utility class, not compact. It would need to have live orindependent pto. Anything less is _possible_ but a pain in the rear. This would also power most small hay cutting machnes as well, tho beware the bigger mocos.

For round bales, I'd want at least 50 hp, 65hp would be better. There are miniture round balers that use less hp, but they are rare and expensive, and a small odd sized bale, no future to that unless you got a market that demands such.

--->Paul

 

[tessiers]

We do 25 acres with a 41' Farmall H, 53' Ford NAA, 7' JD draw bar mounted sickle, ground driven bar rake, New Holland 67 Baler. Nothing is newer than the 60's and it all works very well. Had to do a little searching to find suitable equipment, but I believe the age makes it good equipment. If it wasn't good it would have been scrapped years ago. It drives me nuts when people say 50 hp independent PTO. Some of the best days I have spent have been on that Farmall listening to the sickle work and watching the grass fall in waves. To me you said it all when you said it was just playing around.